


The Boss

by skyeward



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Arguing, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 22:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11091480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyeward/pseuds/skyeward
Summary: Jack, Aria, and power dynamics on Omega.aka: the one where Jack pushes her luck and they're in love





	The Boss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlackjackKent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackjackKent/gifts).



> I wrote this 2 hours after my bedtime, so I'm sorry in advance.
> 
> A birthday gift for blackjackkent, this may not make too much sense because it's more or less set in the canon of our old Jack/Aria roleplay threads.

“I can soundly assure you he’s 90% dead." 

"Not good enough!”

“Aria.” Jack growls, “I’m almost out of thermal clips, so unless you’ve got more hiding up your asshole or something, I’m not wasting a shot on the guy bleeding out on my boot!”

Aria is silent for a few long seconds, until Jack finally catches on that something is wrong and looks up. Those ghost-pale eyes, always cool and hard - at least in public - are frozen titanium. The three mercs standing behind her are shifting uncomfortably and looking away from the whole scene. One of them starts shuffling slowly backwards; self-preservation at its finest.

It dawns on Jack all at once that she has crossed a line, and her chest tightens. She drops her gaze to the man on the floor, who is almost certainly dead by now. Is she wrong? Or rather, has she done the right thing? Maybe technically - she wasn’t exaggerating how few thermal clips she has left - but Aria has never looked at her like that. It hurts, a tearing sensation deep in her chest.

She lifts her gun and shoots the dead man in the back of the head.

Aria turns and walks away, and Jack follows in silence.

* * *

The silence lingers for hours. Between the two of them, anyway; everything around them is shouting and gunfire and explosions. This is easy, though, for Jack - this is where she comes from. She trips up a Blood Pack berserker with her biotics, shoves a small bomb in the neck of his armor, and loots his lower half - all that remains - for more thermal clips.

It’s not enough to get her through the end of the fight, but it helps. In the end she still runs out, and spends the last few minutes of the fight hiding behind a cluster of crates, playing biotic support to the rest of Aria’s crew, and seething.

She knows one shot wouldn’t have made any difference, she really does, thinks it a dozen times between her last shot and the end of the fight, but… what if it had?

The fight ends eventually, and Jack is free to emerge from her corner and biotically kick a dead human across the room so hard it dents the wall. It doesn't help, and Aria still doesn't talk to her.

* * *

After the offending gang members are red smears and memories, Jack and Aria have returned to Aria’s private apartment and the other shoe finally drops.

No sooner does the door slide shut behind her that Aria whirls on her, eyes now blazing white hot but her voice a low, cool buzz.

“You undermined me in front of my men,” Aria says slowly. “In here I might let you mouth off, might even let you take charge from time to time, but out there-” she gestures sharply to the door “-out there I am in charge! I am the goddess-damned boss and you will shut the _fuck_  up and do what you’re told!”

“I don’t have a problem doing what I’m told when what I’m told makes some fucking sense!” Jack snarls in response. She’s been bullied by people a lot more likely to kill her than Aria is (she thinks, she hopes), and she’s not backing down. She’s been stewing in this for hours now, trying to think of ways to apologize but only growing more and more certain that she was right to begin with.

“Firstly,” Aria growls soft and deadly, “They don’t learn lessons from bodies that died on their own. They learn from ankle-deep blood and brains on the walls. Secondly,” and Jack can hear the slight creak of leather as she shifts her weight, “I shouldn’t even have to tell you that much, because you’re supposed to trust me, Jack.”

Jack lowers her head, half hoping it’ll make her look contrite and half not caring if it’s read for the defiance it actually is. She doesn’t answer, and a moment passes in fraught silence before Aria speaks again.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Jack snaps back without thinking. 

Aria goes silent again, and Jack winces internally, but doesn't take it back.

When Aria finally speaks again, her voice - if possible - even softer and lower. Jack wonders if she’s the only person to have ever heard this version of Aria’s voice and survived.

“I trusted you.”

Aria takes a step forward, and Jack wonders if she _is_ actually going to survive it.

The silence continues and Jack can feel herself shaking. She’s not afraid that Aria will actually hurt her, has never been afraid (that is a lie, and she knows it), but she is struggling. She doesn’t want to be wrong, but she doesn’t want to push Aria away from her, either. For once in her life she has something good, something unconditional, someone who understands and accepts her exactly as she is. She has a place and a purpose and a life. She has love.

And that, she decides, is more important than being right all the time.

Aria takes another step forward, and Jack clenches her fists, closes her eyes. Now’s the time.

“I’m sorry!” she blurts, a lot louder than she intended, but Aria doesn’t flinch away. Aria has never flinched away from anything about her. She wants to say it again, wants to talk and talk and talk until Aria understands how sorry she is, how much she loves her, how much she doesn’t want to let them go. The words catch in her throat and choke her.

Aria steps forward one more time, her heels clicking softly, and a leather-clad hand cups the back of Jack’s neck, draws her forward until their foreheads touch.

“I’m sorry too,” Aria murmurs, and the tightness in Jack’s chest unfurls. She sways, dizzy, and starts breathing again. Aria continues. "It was a bad order." 

Jack's hands come up, grabbing at the edges of Aria’s jacket and hanging on tight like a baby in need of comfort. Maybe she is.

“I love you,” she murmurs, and for the first time it feels like a declaration, not a confession. There’s more to say of course, a discussion they need to have about boundaries and public personas and trust and a hundred other things, but for right now this will do. She repeats herself just to hear the words again, “I love you.”

Aria doesn’t answer, and Jack has to smile wryly. Who would have guessed that Jack would end up being the mushy one in any relationship? Her heart twists and murmurs that she’s gone too far, pushed too hard, and any second now Aria’s going to pull away and tell her to leave. She grits her teeth and holds tighter to Aria’s jacket. Even if that is true, she won’t let go without a fight.

There’s a gentle pressure on her mind that takes her a second to place. They’ve never melded outside of sex - she had only the vaguest idea that it was even possible - but it works the same way. She relaxes her mind and is flooded with… Aria. It’s a lot, it always is, but there are a thousand years of Aria and not even thirty of Jack. It takes her a second to reorient to herself to which bit of this ocean is her, and even longer to sort out which feelings belong to whom.

To her surprise - her shock, even - the love that envelopes her is not just her own.

_I can’t say it_ , Aria’s voice murmurs in her ear, _I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say those words again, but I can show it to you_.

* * *

It's nice for a minute or two, this gentle sharing, but in short order electricity begins to arc between them. The battle-rush hasn't worn off quite yet.

“So,” Aria murmurs against Jack’s ear, her voice back to the warm rumble that never fails to light a fire in Jack’s blood. “Would you like to take this to the bedroom?”

Jack grins, all teeth, and turns her head to nip at Aria’s chin.

“Fuck the bedroom, the couch is closer.”

She moves to push Aria in that direction, only to be pushed backwards herself until she’s pinned against the wall.

“The wall is even closer,” Aria comments with a grin of her own, already unbuckling Jack’s belt. Jack’s grin widens as she reaches up to pull off her shirt as well.

“This is why you’re the boss.”


End file.
